Why are Mother’s and Father’s Day so close?
Why not space them out to give us infertile/loss people a bit of time to breathe?

As I was falling apart, my husband was working desperately to help me keep it together.
Reverse that, only one month later and I am feeling off-kilter and unbalanced.

This year was particularly hard for both of us. We have already decided that next year we are going to try and ignore it all and go to a movie. We just sat around, looked at each other and cried occasionally. I do not want to do that again anytime soon.

Here’s a tip for the fertile people: it’s ok to acknowledge these two days. If you are thinking of it, you can be sure that we are as well.

In the last month or so, I have had several unexpected infertility and loss bonding sessions.
A sweet co-worker going through her first loss. The lovely tech taking my blood the day before Mother’s Day while being surrounding by pregnant women. The online friend trying to figure out how to mark the due date of her lost baby without falling into the pit of depression.

These three conversations were a result of my openness and willingness to talk about infertility and loss. This is fairly new for me. I used to be fully in the closet. I don’t even know why. Why don’t people talk about infertility? It’s too personal? That just seems silly now. I gain so much from these interactions. Infertility, despite the strong online community, is very isolating in real life. Fertility is all around you – literally. You feel alone in your grief with only your spouse to hang on to. Until you start talking about it. When you find a person dealing with infertility too, the bond is immediate. You are sisters. Sisters in loss. We have our own club. It sucks, but it’s ours.

I wish that there was a way for us to find each other IRL. Without stupid rubber bracelets. Something more subtle. Purple nail polish on our pinky fingers?